Key House and Senate lawmakers approved far-reaching new financial rules early Friday after weeks of division, delay and frantic last-minute dealmaking. The dawn compromise set up a potential vote in both houses of Congress next week that could send the landmark legislation to President Obama by July 4.

Lawmakers pulled an all-nighter, wrapping up their work at 5:39 a.m. — more than 20 messy, mind-numbing hours after they began Thursday morning.

“It’s a great moment. I’m proud to have been here,” said a teary-eyed Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee led the effort in the Senate. “No one will know until this is actually in place how it works. But we believe we’ve done something that has been needed for a long time. It took a crisis to bring us to the point where we could actually get this job done.”

To me, there are two basic things every legislator should know before they vote “yes” on a bill.

1) Is it legal. Meaning, is it constitutional.

2) What impact will it have on society.

During the health care debate, we had people like Senator Kent Conrad flat-out admit that they didn’t know if the bill was constitutional or not. Now we have people like Pelosi and Dodd admitting that nobody knows how the legislation they’re voting for will play out.

This is unbelievable. If we don’t know what is in these bills, or how these bills will impact our society, why in the world are we passing them?

Rob Port is the editor of SayAnythingBlog.com. In 2011 he was a finalist for the Watch Dog of the Year from the Sam Adams Alliance and winner of the Americans For Prosperity Award for Online Excellence. In 2013 the Washington Post named SAB one of the nation's top state-based political blogs, and named Rob one of the state's best political reporters.